The present invention relates to a method for establishing a sorting result for a value document while employing sensor data for the value document which are capturable or were captured by means of a value-document processing apparatus with one or a plurality of sensors, and while employing pre-specified classification parameters, and to means for apparatus of the method.
Value documents are understood here to be sheet-shaped objects that represent for example a monetary value and hence should not be manufacturable arbitrarily by unauthorized persons. They hence have features that are not simple to manufacture, in particular to copy, whose presence is an indication of authenticity, i.e. manufacture by an authorized body. Important examples of such value documents are coupons, vouchers, checks and in particular bank notes.
For checking such value documents by machine, value-document processing apparatuses are used. Such value-document processing apparatuses, in particular bank-note processing apparatuses, classify value documents, in particular bank notes, by means of a pre-specified classification method with regard to value-document type, in the case of bank notes with regard to currency and/or value, and/or authenticity and/or quality and/or orientation. The orientation of a value document, assuming a rectangular value document, will hereinafter be understood to be one of the four possible positions that can be obtained by rotating the value document around its longitudinal and transverse axes by 180° in each case. The quality of a value document is understood to be in particular its state; in the case of bank notes the state can be given for example by an association with classes such as “fit for circulation” and/or “unfit for circulation” and/or “damaged” or “damaged” in connection with the kind of damage. In dependence on the classification, the value documents can then for example be sorted and, where applicable, deposited in corresponding output regions. This will be explained by the example of value documents in the form of bank notes.
Classification is effected on the basis of different physical properties of the individual, i.e. respectively processed, bank note. Examples of such physical properties are optical properties, for example color properties, magnetic properties or ultrasonic properties.
Upon capture of the different physical properties of the individual, i.e. respectively yet to be processed or already processed, bank note, sensor data are generated upon processing in a bank-note processing apparatus by means of its sensors, said data being employed for the classification. The sensor data of a respective sensor describe the physical property or properties captured by the respective sensor. Sensor data will hereinafter be understood in general to be in particular raw data formed by a sensor, which are unprocessed apart from some processing operations in the sensor and/or corrections, for example also with regard to calibration and/or removal of noise components or background components.
In an attached data processing device acting as an evaluation device, which can also be configured at least partly for controlling the value-document processing apparatus or as a control and evaluation device, a classification result is established from the sensor data delivered by the sensors, by means of a classification method while evaluating the sensor data. Upon the evaluation there are determined, inter alia, bank-note features which at least partly characterize the bank-note type and/or the authenticity and/or the quality of the bank note by suitable evaluation methods in corresponding pre-specified substeps. In dependence on the determined bank-note features, the evaluation device then computes a classification result, which subsequently determines in which output pocket of the bank-note processing apparatus the bank note is to be deposited, and will hence be designated as the sorting result within the context of the present invention. When the evaluation device is configured as a control and evaluation device, it can actuate a transport device of the bank-note processing apparatus in dependence on the classification result or sorting result.
The evaluation methods and the establishment of the classification result must be adapted to the type of bank notes to be processed and also to the requirements of the operators of bank-note processing apparatuses. For this purpose, the evaluation device, preferably at least one evaluation program running therein, is parameterizable, i.e. classification parameters are present whose values are pre-specifiable and which are employed upon the carrying out of the classification method, i.e. the evaluation and actual classification, or the establishment of the classification result; said adapting of the classification parameter values, also designated as adapting of the classification parameters, in connection with the fixing of evaluation substeps and their order, where applicable, will hereinafter be designated as adaptation.
To establish appropriate classification parameters, the sensor data of corresponding, suitably pre-specified bank notes can be employed for adapting the classification parameters. More precisely, corresponding sensor data are captured and stored in a first step upon a measuring-data acquisition for the pre-specified bank notes with the bank-note processing apparatus. Said sensor data are then utilized for establishing the classification parameter values in a second step.